Track: Browser as a Platform

Abstract: By large the majority of us have been creating applications for the Web since the early 90's and we have "just" accepted the stateless nature of the Web and the fact that HTTP is limiting us to a request response communication profile. Sixteen years later we have an opportunity to let Web communication take a gigantic step forward - if we let it - and forever change the way in which we build applications for the Web. Web applications have traditionally been seen as second tier citizens in our network infrastructure, not capable of fully participate in the backend message infrastructure due to its stateless architecture. One innovation -

W3C's HTML 5 WebSockets - in particular will enable full-duplex communication, and finally bring an end to the tired request response paradigm traditionally associated with the Web, and allow browsers to become first class citizens in our network.

With this new emerging standard and the potential it brings, it is now possible to simplify complex architectures and build statefull asynchronous systems and communicate with native protocols directly from the browser to any backend service. In this session, the speaker will offer their vision of the future of the Web and Web technologies, address the importance of browser support of the W3C WebSocket and Server-Sent Events standards, and offer insight into the key role developers play in W3C standards proliferation and the impact they might have on the end users.

During the session real-life demos and examples of the use of WebSockets and other communication standards such as Server-Sent Events and Cross-document messaging will be shown. The techniques and technologies covered in this session will include, but are not limited to, JavaScript, Flash, Silverlight, and communication protocols such as AMQP, XMPP, and Stomp.